A woman who found a vital piece of evidence in the hunt for schoolgirl Sarah Payne's killer has been thanked with a reward.

Deborah Bray spotted Sarah's black sandal near Coolham, West Sussex.

It was the only item of the eight-year-old's clothing found and fibres on it were traced to a clown-patterned curtain found in paedophile Roy Whiting's van.

Mrs Bray, 41, was presented with £500 at Lewes Crown Court and thanked by police officers for helping to solve the difficult case.

Accepting the reward from the High Sheriff of East Sussex, Richard Carden, Mrs Bray said she was "very honoured".

She had spotted the shoe in the road near Coolham two weeks before Sarah's naked body was found in a shallow grave less than five miles away.

When Mrs Bray heard about the discovery, she recalled seeing the shoe and contacted police who asked her to try to find it.

Speaking outside the court last night, Mrs Bray said: "Thank goodness I went back. It had got lodged in the hedge so I had to look for it. I went up and down the verge several times to find it."

Asked how she felt when she learned of the shoe's forensic importance, the mother-of-two said: "It was very distressing, very emotional, very upsetting".

Two months after giving evidence in the trial of Whiting, now serving a life sentence for the murder, Mrs Bray has received the award announced by trial judge Justice Richard Curtis on the day Whiting was convicted.